


Headcanons

by supermusicmad



Category: Cabin Pressure, Doctor Who
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Headcanon, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 11:50:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supermusicmad/pseuds/supermusicmad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four short ficlets based on headcanons from the cpheadcanons tumblr</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Headcanon one: The real reason why Martin does not date stewardesses from other cabin crews is that he can’t imagine that any of these girls would engage themselves in a serious relationship. He wouldn’t be happy if a girl was just falling for his uniform and not for him.

“Hey, Captain.”

Martin almost doesn’t look up. No-one ever thinks he’s the Captain, especially not girls, so she can’t be talking to him. But then there’s a slender manicured hand under his chin, lifting his head up, and he suddenly finds himself looking into the large dark eyes of an incredibly pretty stewardess.

“Errr – yes, I am,” he says stupidly, and quickly corrects himself. “I mean, erm, hello.”

She takes a seat at his table uninvited, and Martin mentally curses. _No, not you, go away..._

“So, you flying in, or flying out?” she asks him.

_Neither_ , he thinks irritably. _I’m sitting in the airport, trying to read a newspaper_. “Out,” he replies.

“Oh yeah? Where you headed to?” She procures a neon pink straw from somewhere, leans over the table and sips from his glass of orange juice.

Martin tries to stay calm. “Hong Kong next,” he says conversationally. He picks up his drink and drains it. “And I really ought to get going, I -”

She catches his wrist and looks up at him through long dark eyelashes. “Oh, can’t that silly plane wait just a little while?” she simpers.

Martin almost considers it. He’s got nearly an hour and a half until he needs to be back in GERTI, and the stewardess really is very pretty. He imagines what she looks like under that uniform – not that it leaves a great deal to the imagination. But he cannot see her breasts or her hips, and he tries to picture them, moving desperately as she writhes in pleasure between him and the wall of a toilet cubicle. It’s not entirely unpleasant, but then he thinks of the aftermath – the awkward silence as they redress, the promise to call him that would never be fulfilled. Not worth it, he thinks.

“No, thank you,” he says quickly, and leaves.

He spends the next hour and a half in GERTI, revising safety procedures.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon two: Whenever the pilots find “insults” under the door, Douglas slips his into Martin’s pocket. He needs it more than Douglas does.

“Bet you anything it’s just a complaint. I told you to be more careful on that landing.”

“You never know, Martin. You never know.” Douglas stooped by the flight deck door and picked up the small white envelope. Opening it, he was pleasantly surprised to find two crisp twenty pound notes and a tenner.

“Go on, then. What’s the damage?” Martin asked.

“It’s a hundred quid, Martin,” Douglas said, without skipping a beat. “Not bad at all.”

“A hundred?” Martin yelped.

“Indeed. So that’s forty for you-” He took out the two twenties and handed them to Martin, keeping the envelope holding the ten pound note to himself. “And sixty for me.”

“Douglas, we split the tips fifty-fifty. You -”

“ _Bet you anything it’s a complaint_ , you said. I think ten pounds is a fair wager.” Douglas pocketed the tenner and smiled to himself a little. Yes, he appreciated Martin needed the money far more than he did. Still, a bet was a bet, and he couldn’t go too easy on the poor Captain, could he?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon 3: Arthur Shappey has met the Doctor at some point. That’s why he needed to know whether the object in the box was bigger than the box it was in

“Wow!”

Arthur gazed around the spaceship. It was a spaceship, obviously. Normal boxes weren’t so bright and pretty when you got in them, and they didn’t have all those controls and buttons and levers. Only things that could fly had controls like that, and it wasn’t a plane. Arthur’s dad had a plane, he knew a plane when he saw one. So it must be a spaceship.

“So what do you think?” the Doctor said, grinning down at him.

“It’s brilliant!” Arthur said excitedly, running up to the control panel and prodding at some of the less dangerous-looking features of it. “What do all these do, do they make it fly? How does it fly, Doctor? And how did you g-?” Arthur broke off as he saw the Doctor’s face. He was still smiling, but there was a question in his eyes, and it couldn’t get out of his mouth while Arthur was still talking, so he quickly shut up and waited to see what the Doctor would say.

“Most people mention how it’s bigger on the inside first,” the Doctor said, sounding surprised and a little let down.

“Oh, right,” Arthur said, staring at his shoes. He’d done something wrong again. He was good at that, apparently. “Sorry.”

“It’s OK, I’m not telling you off, I-” The Doctor crouched down next to Arthur and smiled at him. “Only grown-ups tell people off, and I don’t look like a grown-up, do I?”

“Not at all. I just – I mean it is big in here. It’s really big,” Arthur clarified himself. “But it’s lots of other things as well, it’s so beautiful and it’s exciting and it’s brilliant, and there’s lots of bigness, but there’s lots and lots of other things going on in here too.”

The Doctor looked like he was considering this for a second, and then nodded. “Yes, I suppose there are,” he said. He gestured to one of the staircases. “Want to go and see some of them?”

“Yes please!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon four: Martin’s had actual nightmares about losing his job. Whether it is by MJN going bust, Carolyn hiring somebody else, or just him finally having so little money he cannot continue with his “hobby” anymore.

After St Petersburg was the worst one yet. For the first time he dreamt that he’d crashed the plane, that GERTI was lying in pieces around him and Douglas wasn’t moving and there was blood on his face and Arthur was crying and Carolyn was just stood there, in the remains of the only thing she’d really been proud of, and Martin couldn’t even look at her because it was _his fault_.

Usually he woke abruptly from dreams like that, but this time it took a few minutes to orientate himself and remember where he was. It took even longer to remember he hadn’t actually crashed the plane.

When he remembered, he cried. He hadn’t even cried after the real landing.

Only slightly preferable to that were the dreams when he turned up at work, only to find he’d been replaced by Paramount Martin. Paramount Martin, who didn’t even know which runway to use on the approach to Nice! And Arthur obviously fawned over him and even Douglas seemed to like him and Carolyn had somehow scraped the cash up to pay him and no-one watched as Martin got into his van and drove away from the airfield for the last time.

Now, those dreams really weren’t fair, because Martin actually liked Paramount Martin quite a lot. He was probably the only person Martin would count as a friend outside of MJN, and he didn’t want to be made to hate him by a stupid dream. He’d normally text him the day after dreams like that, ask him how the acting was going, and he’d get a reply saying it was going as badly as always, and although he didn’t like to admit it he felt a little better.

Luckily, the dreams never seemed to happen when Martin was actually away on a flight. He almost always shared a hotel room with Douglas, and didn’t want to imagine the ribbing he’d get if Douglas ever found out.

It just had to happen on the night Douglas was at his house, though. There had been some sort of DIY emergency that made his own home uninhabitable, and with nowhere else to stay at such short notice he’d found himself on the floor of Martin’s tiny attic, which neither of them were particularly pleased about.

Martin woke suddenly from the dream. It was dark, except for the bright green display of his alarm clock informing him that it was 2.44am. He sighed, sat up and realised Douglas was staring at him.

They looked at each other in silence for a moment. Douglas was sat upright with the blanket half-wrapped around him and looking like he’d been awake for quite some time. He looked surprised, even, maybe for the first time in Martin’s experience, speechless. “I... You were talking in your sleep,” he said eventually.

 _Oh shit. Shit shit shit shit_. Why this one night, why did his First Officer have to find out every little embarrassing thing about him? “Sorry,” Martin stuttered. Not knowing what else to do, he rolled over and closed his eyes again, and moments later he heard Douglas do the same.

The next morning Martin had a job in the van, so he woke early. He decided not to wake Douglas, instead leaving him a note and spare keys. Presumably Douglas, while pretty unpleasant at times, wasn’t actually _evil_ enough to make copies of his keys or steal anything. Besides, he could hardly kick Douglas out when he had nowhere else to be. It made sense not to wake him.

It was certainly nothing to do with avoiding talking to him about the nightmare.

The traffic was terrible, and the job took longer than expected, and it was late when Martin got back. Douglas had gone, leaving the keys and a note explaining that he’d managed to get in touch with his brother and would be staying with him until the house was fixed. Martin breathed a sigh of relief. Their next flight wasn’t for almost a week. By the time Douglas saw him again, he might have forgotten about the nightmare.

Martin’s room was small, and his few belongings were well-organised, so he noticed the change that Douglas had made straight away. Reading the simple message, he was first puzzled, then embarrassed, and finally struck by a profound gratitude as he realised Douglas had actually done something thoughtful for once.

He drifted to sleep that night gazing up at the papers stuck to the low ceiling above his bed. One was a photograph of himself and the rest of MJN in uniform in front of GERTI, taken for a brochure a few months ago. Underneath the picture, in curling red script that could only belong to Douglas, were the words –

“You really _are_ a Captain, Martin. Really.”


End file.
